Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to an ink jet recording method and an ink jet recording apparatus.
Description of the Related Art
Ink jet recording methods enable recording on various recording media. Various inks, for example, inks suitable for recording images of photographic quality on glossy paper and inks suitable for recording documents on plain paper, have been proposed for each use to improve image quality.
Ink jet recording methods have also been utilized to record business documents including text and graphics on plain paper and are becoming increasingly useful in such applications. With advances in ink jet recording methods, there are demands for improved durability and reliability in long-term use and for higher productivity with an increased number of recorded documents. In order to satisfy such demands, an ink having a low surface tension and dissolved oxygen content is used to enhance purge recovery (recovery from ejection failure by means of suction of ink from an ejection port) (see Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-083621).
In order to increase productivity, the present inventors tried to increase the main tank capacity in an ink jet recording apparatus that includes a main tank and a sub tank. The main tank is a main ink storage portion and includes an air communication part. It was confirmed that the use of an ink having a low dissolved oxygen content described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-083621 tended to improve reliability. However, recording involving ink ejection for extended periods using a recording apparatus including a large main tank tended to cause gradually degraded image quality. Such degradation was not prevented with an ink described in Japanese Patent Laid-Open No. 2004-083621.